Academic literature on the topic 'Korean literature'

The purpose of this study is to depict and examine the perception of black Koreans in South Korean children’s literature. This study examines my research questions through four theoretical frameworks: “culture and identity”, “post-colonialism, nationalism and racism”, “blackness and black Koreans’ portrayal in Korean media” and “multiculturalism in Korea”. My study raises the question how multicultural literature can help or not promote a new perception of otherness in South Korea. The method used for this study is qualitative text analysis. The primary source of information is a close-reading of Won You Soon’s book “Please find Charlton Sunja Kim” and interviews with the author of this book. The findings show that there are still some stereotypes about black Koreans and blackness that prevail in South Korean society and can still be found in recent literary works.

The advent of Western influence has brought about many changes to Korean music. The most significant were the division of Korean musical culture into kugak (traditional Korean music) and yangak (Western music) and the rise of a new genre, ch'angjak kugak, "new compositions for traditional music". Kim Kisu, who was trained as a traditional court music performer in the early 20th century, was the first modem composer of music for traditional instruments. His music was written in staff notation incorporating various Western elements, including harmony, diatonic scales, and playing techniques based on Western instrument practices. Though he was trained as a court musician, his works demonstrated a desire to embrace Western culture and music in his compositions. Since Kim Kisu's innovations, many composers have been influential in the development of the genre. I focus on two of the most representative, Yi Sung-Chun and Yi Haeshik. Yi Sung-Chun, who is also a highly respectable educator, has sacrificed his musical life to expand the quantity and the quality of this genre. In the 1980s, he designed the improved 21-string kayagüm and has written significant and successful pieces for this instrument. His search for new sounds led him to break many of the old conventions surrounding traditional instruments, and to write more contemporary and modern music. Yi Haeshik, who is known for his use of the folk idiom in his works, has composed many pieces that borrow elements from traditional shamanistic music, sanjo, folksongs and more. His approach reflects a movement to find "Korean contemporary identity" within the folk tradition in Korea and other countries, and within the world of dance. The ch'angjak kugak genre has seen significant development in the years since its inception and the three composers I focus on - Kim Kisu, Yi Sung-Chun and Yi Haeshik - best demonstrate the progress of the genre

<p> Cinderella stories are one of the most popular fairy tales in the world. At the same time, they are most stigmatized by people for describing a weak and passive female protagonist. To discover possible explanations for this continuing popularity of Cinderella stories, I chose to analyze the Kongjwi Patjwi story, one of the Cinderella tales in Korea. The Kongjwi Patjwi story is one of the well-known folktales in Korea that has been adapted for children since the beginning of the 20th century. Since the Kongjwi Patjwi story is not familiar to many western people, I first analyze two of the folklore versions of Kongjwi Patjwi to prove that this story is also one kind of Cinderella tale. Both of them have the "innocent, persecuted heroine" theme, which is one of the most distinctive features of Cinderella tales. In one version, the plot follows almost exactly the same trajectory as European Cinderella tales in that it has the lost shoe motif and marriage with the Prince. The biggest difference between the Korean Cinderella and other Cinderella stories is that there is another plot in the Korean Cinderella story as the passive protagonist matures and becomes an independent woman. In some of the adapted fairy tale versions for children, this plot does not appear and the Korean Cinderella becomes another passive girl who is rescued by her Prince Charming. One of the reasons for this change is that the mothers, the buyers of the children's books, want the "Prince Charming's rescue" plot because they find that it is hard to become an independent woman in Korean society. To accommodate the consumers' wants and needs, publishers intentionally change the plots with passive protagonists. The folklore version of Kongjwi Patjwi actually suggests a more independent and mature female character which would be a good role model for many young boys and girls.</p>

This study explores cultural representations and cultural adaptations made by translators in translated children's picture books. This study has two focuses. In the first part of this study, which is a critical content analysis, I examine the cultural representations depicted in Korean-to-English and English-to-Korean translated picture books, using cultural studies as a theoretical framework. In the second part of this study, I compare original and translated editions of Caldecott and popular Korean picture books to find out how the translators adapt cultural, ideological, and linguistic conflicts in the process of translation, using translation as a dialogic process. For the first part of this study, I found four categories related to the cultural representations: (1) a sense of belonging and societal membership; (2) constructing and challenging gender stereotypes; (3) constructing images of childhood; and (4) dominant visual images of South Korea/the United States. These findings indicate that the insider authors of Korean culture try to show authentic images of South Korea, using contemporary fiction stories. The Korean translated books also deal with various images of American culture authentically from historical fiction to contemporary fiction. However, a small number of books do not show broad cultural representations of both cultures. In the second focus of this study on cultural adaptations, the analysis directly compared original and translated editions of the same texts. The themes of cultural familiarity, adaptations regarding illustrations, completely different translations, omissions, additions, and changes of titles or book jackets were identified. These findings indicate that most American and Korean translators purposely made cultural adaptations in the process of translation in order to help target readers to have better understanding of these international books. Additionally, they did not change essential authentic features, such as the characters' names and geographic names. I also found mistranslations between the original and translated editions of books. These changes could have occured because the translators lacked knowledge of both cultures or of the deep structures of the stories. The implication section provides recommendations to publishers, translators, educators, parents, teacher educators, and researchers and suggestions for further research.